From Brian Hauser comes debut novel Memento Mori: The Fathomless Shadows, a tale of a missing filmmaker and the spaces between truth, fiction, fantasy, and the uncanny. Look for Memento Mori at better independent booksellers everywhere, and most online retailers. Copies with signed bookplates are available direct from Word Horde.

Underground filmmaker Tina Mori became a legend in the late 1970s with a stolen camera, a series of visionary Super 8 shorts (The Eye, The Stairs, The Imperial Dynasty of America) and a single feature film, heralded as her masterpiece, Dragon’s Teeth. Then she disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Was it foul play, or did Tina Mori go somewhere else? And if so, where? Could it have been the otherworldly Carcosa so often referenced in her films?

Through many layers, including letters, a ‘zine made by a teenage horror film fan, and a memoir written by Mori’s college roommate and muse, film historian and debut novelist Brian Hauser delves deep into Tina Mori’s life and legacy, exploring the strange depths and fathomless shadows situated between truth, fiction, fantasy, and the uncanny.

Cover by Matthew Revert

Pub Date: May 28, 2019

Format: Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-939905-48-2

Format: eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-939905-49-9

About the Author

BRIAN HAUSER is a writer and filmmaker from Carter-era rust belt suburbia. He lives in northern New York with his partner and two cats. Memento Mori: The Fathomless Shadows is his first novel.

Reviews

“…an engrossing, baffling horror debut that veers hard into the weird […]. Fans of the uncanny (and especially of Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow, to which this work alludes) will find much to love and laud.” —Publishers Weekly

“The prose immerses you like a dark tide of very cold water, sinking you in another reality before you quite realize it.” –Marion Deeds for Fantasy Literature

“Brian Hauser has crafted a tense, readable ride down a rabbit-hole that goes straight to Carcosa. […] The result is a book that feels vital, as deeply connected to people as it is genre.” –Carson Winter for Signal Horizon

“I want to tell you about Brian Hauser’s Memento Mori. I want to tell you about the fanzine that reopened the door, and the memoir, and the lost films. I want to tell you about the medium being the message. How that message is transmitted, and how it can be transformed through translation into different–new media. How the message is corrupt and corrupting, infected and infectious. I want to tell you about Tina Mori, and C.C. Waite and the disappearance of Billie Jacobs. I want to tell you these things and how they all spiraled together into a coherent wave of madness. But I can’t. Brian Hauser won’t let me. It’s not my place. I have seen–but you must see–must read–for yourself. Come and see. Say that you will. Please. Will you come?” –Pete Rawlik, editor of The Chromatic Court

“Brian Hauser’s Memento Mori is a mysterious deep dive into the dark waters connecting underground film, music and weird fiction. A fascinating blend of found footage, lost writings, and incantations, Memento Mori leaves its imprint on your psyche.” –John Palisano, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Ghost Heart, President of The Horror Writers Association

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